Bit freaked out...please help!

KiKi

The other week I swore that I heard something coming from my phone, it sounded like I could hear someone who was listening to a Youtube video or something, and the short snippet I heard was describing a sex toy - it was a very short snippet and it stopped. I thought maybe I'd been on Twitter and some video had autoplayed without me realising, and that was it.

Today, whilst I was on a scrabble type app, there were some high pitched squeaks and then I could, definitely, without doubt, hear someone the other end, listening to music and tapping on a keyboard. It was unmistakeable.

I closed the app and the sound continued. There were no apps running it was coming from. I switched my phone off, concerned that it had been hacked (esp as I could hear someone tapping away). On switching it back on there was a text from my phone company saying "great, to apply those new settings to to system message bank" - and then there was a system message asking if I wanted to accept the new settings. (This is what it does when you go to another country and have to get the settings redone in order for your phone to work there.) I said no.

I uninstalled the app and switched my phone off. But am concerned that someone has access to my phone, anything on it etc. And don't know what to do to block them / it, as I don't know if it's the phone itself, my number or what it is that they have access to, if any. So I don't know what to block / stop.

Has anyone heard of this, or can any one please provide any advice? I do have AVG on the phone, the basic one.

Browntoa

https://www.malwarebytes.com/android/

Install, run and remove all it finds

KiKi

Done that, thank you... It found nothing (I removed the app that I believe enabled it).

techquest

What app do you think caused the problem? If you removed it has the problem gone?

KiKi

I was on Lexulous at the time, playing scrabble with my mum (I live on the edge, you know). I log onto it via Facebook, if that makes a difference. I uninstalled it. Malwarebytes detects nothing. I don't know if the problem has 'gone' - the symptom has, yes - I can't hear anything. But for all I know they did something which means they can access my phone without me knowing, or use my camera, messages, listen in etc.

I'm not a paranoid person - so I don't sit here thinking it's happening - but I do know that just because I can't 'hear' the symptom anymore, it doesn't mean they've not compromised my phone. So I want to make sure I've done everything to make sure they can't access it anymore - but I have NO idea how to do that. Is Malwarebytes sufficient to say there's no problem anymore? Would a factory reset give *absolute* confidence that anything 'put' on my device has gone?

Also, would they have done this by accessing my phone, or my number? Ie, if I put my SIM in my old phone, would that be safer right now until I can be certain that the phone itself isn't compromised?

I'm not techie at all when it comes to phones, sorry for the questions!

techquest

No problems on the questions, that's why we are all on this forum. Your not being paranoid and the most important thing is making sure your safe. These things happen and it is wise to be concerned.

Malwarebytes is excellent for what it does, I use it but it has missed stuff other malware detectors catch. Factory resets will wipe any virus infection. However malware can escalate privileges to the root of a phone, install itself to the system partition or even to the boot and recovery partitions. These are not visible to the average user and in such a case a factory reset won’t help. It would require a savvy techie to get rid of malware infections.

iPhones are harder to infect than Androids as Apple tightly control it's software and apps it allows on the phone, though jailbreaking an iPhone would circumvent this.

Sadly a sim can also be hacked.

Let's start with what mobile do you have?

KiKi

Thank you SO much for your help, this is exactly what I needed.
I have a Huawei P20, so Android.

DoaM

Then again, the Android OS runs all apps in sandboxes (i.e. in it's own, reserved memory space, unless the device is rooted) so one app shouldn't be able to corrupt another one anyway.

techquest

As Doam says same thing applies with android as ios, unless in both cases they have been rooted. You haven't done that , I assume, as you you have already said your not techie. Will have a look around and see if anything else comes to mind.

techquest

KiKi wrote: »

Thank you SO much for your help, this is exactly what I needed.
I have a Huawei P20, so Android.

P20 lite or P20 Pro?

KiKi

Neither lite nor Pro - just normal P20